


Yes, I Fall

by scarredsodeep



Category: AFI
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, College, College AU, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-24
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3097436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neat and neurotic, Adam Carson has never been more nervous than when he's starting college. Smart and angry, Jade Puget is more of a street urchin than the roommate Adam dreamed of... but it doesn't take long for either of them to realize that they can be much more. Originally published 2/24/08 on AFIslash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Adam

As usual, Jade Puget was late. It’s one thing to be late to band practice, or Advanced Calculus, but when you’re three days late moving into your dormitory, something is obviously askew in your life.

I didn’t know him, then. Instead I was a college freshman, shy and self-conscious of how self-conscious I was, and convinced, as I had been my entire life, that I was radically different from everyone around me and as soon as they realized it, I would be ostracized and possibly brutalized for it.

I was also terrified. Of everything: but especially of the sullen creature who had been missing from my life for three nervous days and, once I’d finally gotten used to his absence, suddenly appeared as if deliberately to torment me. He was late, and unexpected. I did not know what to do with myself.

I was sitting in the common area on my floor, flexing tenuous new friendships to find where I fit into them, and if I even wanted to, when he first appeared, a grim pallor cast upon our nervous laughter. The weird kid on my floor who I liked best so far, if only because he seemed as lost and desperate as me, fell silent, staring. His name was Hunter. He was strange-looking and said things that most people wouldn’t, but he made me laugh, and he seemed fun. I twisted in my seat to see what he was staring at.

It wasn’t what. It was who. Tall and half-starved, dark unwashed hair, and black circles under wide, dark eyes. White skin made whiter by a black t-shirt and black jeans, both wrinkled. He glared at our sudden silence and scrutiny, clearly not as interested in making friends as we were. Other than the glare, he looked very, very bored, and a little angry. In his left hand he held a small duffel bag. With his right, he flipped us off.

I whipped back around to face Hunter, who looked more surprised than usual under his fluorescent shock of Billy Idol hair. If I were brave, I would ask if it was supposed to impress girls. So far it didn’t. “Whoa,” he whispered as the terrifying figure slumped unenthusiastically down the hallway. “What a jerk!”

“I wonder what drugs he’s on. Did you see his eyes?” I whispered back, though the specter was well out of earshot. I tried to sound relaxed while I was whispering. I was not. New people made me nervous. So did drugs.

Our topic of conversation drifted, ebbing and flowing as other nervous freshmen joined and left it, until Hunter had a class to get to. He was pre-med, and was taking seven major classes. I’d say it contributed to how alarmed he always looked, but it was the second day of school. With Hunter gone, I was the only distinct outcast in the room.

I didn’t look weird, like Hunter did; I had short brown hair, a very Greek nose, blue eyes. Jeans and a button-down shirt. Standard stuff: I looked like every other anonymous student on campus. The others didn’t treat me like an outcast, either, even if I was shy and quiet. I didn’t really act like one, and I tried not to seem like one, but I knew I was. It was just something I could _feel_ , and it made me nervous. Sooner or later they’d find out. I made up an excuse to the guy who I was supposed to be listening to, even though I didn’t really care about how he missed his girlfriend and was doing a terrible job of acting like it, and left the room, being careful not to draw any attention to myself. The most I could ask for was to just blend in.

Walking down the hall, I heard an obnoxious record pounding the walls. From so far away, it was little more than muffled _noise_. I groaned to myself and immediately hoped no one had heard it. So far, none of the guys on my floor had seemed like obnoxious neighbors. Great—a partier would _definitely_ make me feel more at ease.

But the further I got down the hall, the louder the music got. Until I stopped in front of my own room. The doorknob was practically rattling out of its socket with the beat. Suddenly I recognized the music. It was punk, the kind my friends back home had never listened to. The kind that, when I was alone, I didn’t turn the radio off to avoid. The kind that I almost kind of liked.

Of course, the kids who liked punk _were_ outcasts, and they made sure of it. That was the opposite of me. I did everything in my power to fit in, and I wasn’t going to screw that up by liking punk music. What was next, tattoos and a mohawk? Baggy pants with spikes and skateboards?

My father would throw me out of the house. I could _forget_ about college tuition if I did a thing like that. Not that, of course, I wanted to do a thing like that.

I took a deep breath. Focus, Adam. There were more important things at play here than whether or not I _liked_ the deafening music. What I _should_ be worried about was the fact that there was someone in my room. Without me.

All of a sudden it clicked. No need to fear the worst: my prodigal roommate must have arrived! Excitement bubbled in me. Your college roommate—a friend for life! Wasn’t that practically a billboard? A guarantee? My dad still golfed with his. My mom never stopped talking on the phone with ‘Aunt Kathy’, who was native to Boston and sounded like she had a nasal problem whenever she spoke. I’d been looking forward to meeting him, whoever _he_ was, practically forever. A best friend. Someone who would instinctively know I was an outcast, but _like me anyway_. Unconditionally. Because that was just how it went.

Right?

Grinning, nervous because of what a big moment it was, I flung open the door.

My stomach curdled. I needn’t have imagined the worst. It was standing stupidly in front of me.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	2. Adam

The last thing I needed right then was some excited rich puppy humping my leg and breathing in my face. No matter what the admission boards tell you, it’s the rich kids who get into Berkeley—the ones like me, dirt poor and smarter than every other guy in the building put together, don’t.

The fact that I _was_ here was going to make me a kind of mascot—the prep’s freakshow. I did not want that. In fact, the more I thought about it, I couldn’t understand why I’d worked so hard through high school. Why I’d bothered with all the scholarships and convincing my blue-collar parents to please, just let me do this. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to be here at all.

I had sold most of my personal belongings to pay for the plane ticket out here. Scholarships don’t cover that part. Books—guitar—most of my records: these things had taken the fall. These things considered, I was in a foul mood when the blue-eyed puppy burst into what I immediately knew would never be a sanctuary.

One look at me and the perfect smile slipped right off his face. It was tan, probably from hours spent on Daddy’s sailboat; strong lines cut his jaw and nose out of the smooth brown cheeks. Pink lips faltering over his bleach-white teeth, he stammered out a hello. I wasn’t _that_ scary. He was being ridiculous.

When I didn’t respond, preferring to seize handfuls of my duffel’s contents and thrust them haphazardly into drawers, he spoke again. “Why’d you, um, flip me off?” he blurted, sounding nervous and surprised at himself. Was _that_ why he was so rattled?

“Was that you?” I asked coldly, putting all my desire to be left the hell alone into the words. They came out like knives. “You all look the same to me.”

The puppy looked instantly wounded, but was smart enough to hide the look a moment after it had come. Good boy: don’t show a predator your soft spots. “Well, I’ve never met anyone who looks like you, so I’ll probably remember your name if you tell it to me,” he said bravely. He was really trying.

I dropped the handful of books I was unpacking at my feet. Did he have to sound so damn sincere? Here was a guy who had to be a total fuckwad, looking all heartbroken and trying to be _nice_ to me. I half expected tears to well up in his pretty blue eyes. I should have been suspicious, but I was tired. It had been a long flight. I gave in and told the poor bastard my name. I almost felt bad for being such a dick to him. Unreal.

“I’m Jade,” I told him, sighing and turning down the music. “Is this your record player?” He nodded. Great. “Then I guess we’re roommates.”

“I’m Adam, Adam Carson,” he introduced himself, still looking pretty shaken. He considered extending his hand for a shake, I saw it cross his face, but he seemed to know better. Good: a quick learner.

I had had enough niceties for one day. “Great,” I said, hoping he could tell I was dismissing him. “See you around.”

He hesitated between his bed and the door, reluctant to leave. Apparently my hint was not obvious enough, but I couldn’t very well kick him out of somewhere he lived, too. He picked his bed and sat down uncertainly. My lungs plunged into my stomach. This was what you got for being nice to someone. They think you want to be _friends_. Didn’t he understand that the only thing I wanted was to lie down and feel sorry for myself? Couldn’t he just leave me alone?

“Do you want help unpacking?” he asked. I looked pointedly at my duffel bag, nearly empty to begin with. “Guess not,” he answered himself. I tried not to groan. He was _still talking_. Why couldn’t he just be some jackass who pretended I wasn’t there? I wasn’t a walking trust fund: shouldn’t I be shunned? You can’t join the polo team if you don’t have your own pony, and that shit?

I reached the bottom of my duffel, and the bed was still bare. “Fuck, I forgot about sheets,” I mumbled to myself. Adam leapt to his feet and was suddenly on what was clearly my side of the tiny room, spreading fluffy sheets over the bare bed. I stared at him.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked, as he made neat hospital corners out of the top sheet. In a minute he’d be fluffing my pillow.

He beamed at me. “My mom sent me with extras!” he chirped.

Fury rang in my ears. The fucking bastard! All rich kids were the same. Whether they were nice about it or not, they were all the same.

I stepped over to the bed and tore the sheet off it, gripped with rage. He froze. “I don’t know _who_ you think you are—” I growled.

“I was just—I was helping!” Adam cried, immediately defensive. Which was a good attitude to take up with me, especially when you were a fucking useless rich kid who never did anything but spend Daddy’s money and look down on people who had to work for what they had, as if _not_ being a lazy, spoiled asshole was a character defect.

I raised my voice to make sure he heard me. “—but I do _not_ need your charity!”

The hot, still air rang with my shout. Now Bambi really _did_ look like he was going to cry. “I’m sorry,” he practically whimpered. “My mom bought way more than I need, and since I’m not using them, I just thought—”

I was exhausted all over again. I did not have the energy to be angry, even though the insult still smarted. Easy, Jade. Maybe the kid really is just trying to help.

“Fine,” I spat. The knives were back. “Now please stop talking to me. I don’t want to be friends.”

Looking crushed, Adam obediently left my bedside and slunk out the door. He looked back once, piteously. Once he left, I did not feel relieved. I felt like shit. I had hurt his feelings, bad, and what for? My pride?

I stood there holding the sheet in my hand. It was navy blue, soft and clean. He was just trying to be nice. I stood there that way, feeling like an idiot, for a long time.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	3. Adam

I felt like I’d been hit.

Well, okay, maybe not. I’d never been hit. But I imagined it would feel a lot like what had just happened in there with Jade.

Deep breaths, Adam. Take it slow.

I tried to play over the scene in my head. Boy goes to college. Meets roommate, a.k.a. predestined friend for life. Boy is frightened of roommate. Boy offers roommate help. Roommate goes apeshit on boy.

And I am not one for curse words, either.

It was pretty clear to me what had happened. I had failed.

This was not surprising.

In school, I had always done pretty well. But as for life failures? Okay. Here goes.

I had never had a best friend. My dog did not like me. The last thing my mother had told me before she left was, “Don’t be sad, dear.” Her voice was the flattest thing I’d ever heard. Then her phone had rung, and that had been that. She waved her hand, hooked my dad around her elbow, and they’d been gone. I had never had a girlfriend. I did not have a graduation party, or a prom date. I was born an outcast. I had been such a profound failure that they had not tried for more. I was not allowed siblings. I was unfit.

Is that sufficient? You’d think, wouldn’t you? But now I had ruined things with Jade as well. Shaking, I sank into a half-flat armchair in the common area. I wasn’t going to cry.

I looked around, trying to steady myself. Okay, my self-esteem wasn’t _that_ bad. I wasn’t a sniveling pathetic mess. If I was, I’d wear punk clothes. I tried to comfort myself with the jibe. I managed a mean little snicker, but it just wasn’t in me. Cruelty wasn’t in my nature. I’d found that out in high school. I’d also found out that I was apparently the only one. I didn’t hate myself or anything ridiculous like that. I just felt very, very alone sometimes. Especially then. Especially when I had just moved two hours away from home and the only person I knew looked like Billy Idol on purpose. Especially when my roommate hated me.

I curled up tightly in the armchair. It was hard. I’m very tall. Taller, even, than Jade. Except I didn’t want to think about him.

I was smart. I was okay-looking. And I was at Berkeley now, the college I’d always dreamed of going to. What did it matter what my frightening, punk roommate thought of me? As long as he didn’t sell drugs out of our dorm room, I didn’t need to concern myself with him.

I was going to be all right.

Once that was decided, I burst into tears.

 

I was dozing in the common area when Hunter found me. Well, maybe not dozing. It was three in the morning, and I was definitely snoring.

“Don’t you have class tomorrow morning? What are you doing?” someone was hissing at me, lodging their finger into my spine and prodding.

My mouth was very, very dry. “Sleeping,” I murmured, hoping whoever-it-was would take the hint.

“Out here? No, you’re not. Get up, Adam.”

I attempted to roll clear of the poking, but it wouldn’t stop. Whoever-it-was clearly didn’t know where the line between persistent and obnoxious lay.

That’s when I realized it must be Hunter. “Don’t _you_ have classes tomorrow?” I groaned, twisting around until I suddenly was on the ground instead of the chair.

Hunter shrugged. “I figured that the dragon snoring out here had to be slain if I was going to get any sleep,” he told me. There was a smile in his voice, even if it was too dark to see his face. I didn’t know how he could be smiling after I’d woken him. I guess it meant my new friend was extraordinarily good-tempered. That was a cheering thought. Hunter was a keeper.

“Let’s get you back to your room, okay?” he encouraged, helping me to my feet. I was feeling very stiff. It was not a comfortable sensation.

“No way,” I said instantly. “Hell no. Hunter! You have to let me move in with you.”

Hunter raised his dark, dramatic eyebrows. He was either alarmed by my desperation, or making fun of me. It was too dark to tell, even as my eyes adjusted.

“Remember the scary kid? The one who flipped us off?” I tried to jog his memory.

“Zombie punk, sure,” Hunter filled in. “He totally flipped _you_ off, not me. Do you think he’d have the new Cure album? I really want to hear it, but I’m sort of afraid he’ll give me a wedgie or something if I ask him. He kind of looks like he would, though.”

I was taken aback for a moment. “Wait. The Cure? You like the Cure?”

Hunter shrugged, as easily distracted as I was. “Well, yeah. The Goth wave is kind of interesting, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not Prince, but then so few bands are,” he explained.

I shook my head. Was I trying to rattle something loose, or knock something back into place? He made it sound like it was okay, being a white-collar punk kid. Maybe it was. Maybe we could listen to his records sometime.

Focus, Adam. The case at hand. “Well, that guy, the drug-zombie-punk, he’s my roommate. He finally showed up, and he’s crazy.”

Hunter’s electric grey eyes widened. “Fun crazy, or…?”

“He threw me out,” I filled in, and apparently Hunter could no longer help himself. He burst out laughing.

“Tonight,” he told me between giggles. “You can stay in my room tonight only. Tomorrow morning, you are going to confront the bogeyman.”

I didn’t question his authority. It was official: he was concerned about where I slept at night, and I had confided in him. Laws of desperation made that as final as a blood oath. We were friends. We had a secret midnight trauma to bond us. From this day on, we were stuck with one another.

“Don’t think I’m not brave,” I warned, an afterthought as I followed him down his hallway, moving stiffly. “Because I am _very_ brave.”

It was a vicious lie. Hunter laughed again, more softly now. “You _exude_ bravery, don’t worry. Now come on. It’s bedtime.”

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	4. Jade

I woke up in the morning to chirping birds and California sunshine. I missed St. Louis. Maybe it was ridiculously hot, but at least it had the decency to be gloomy and thick. This dry, sunshiney heat made my body feel tense and cramped, ready to spring or else snap. I peeled myself out of my sweaty bed and felt instantly on edge. How can the weather agitate you? The Santa Anas weren’t due for another month or so. Maybe I was just crazy.

I had barely stopped squinting against the aggressive sunlight when I realized Bambi still wasn’t back. My stomach sank. Damnit, Jade. Did I have to be so unpleasant? I’d chased the kid away, already. I’d figured it would have taken at least a few weeks to do that. Not that I would mind having an absentee roommate, but that was kind of my job. A sweet, clean-cut kid like the one I’d psychologically damaged yesterday should spend all his time studying sincerely for his classes and rushing for fraternities. I should hide in the library to get away from him. Not vice versa.

The last part made me feel less bad for scaring him away. From the way I was making him sound, he wasn’t someone I wanted to be around anyway.

My inner monologue was interrupted by my growling stomach. There had to be a cafeteria around here somewhere; a prepaid meal was my first priority. Screw the roommate, he’d find his way back eventually. He probably kept a map and a compass in his fucking fanny pack anyway.

I smiled at my little joke, and set out in search of food.

 

I sat down with a plate of steaming waffles. They didn’t look like they’d taste any worse than the ones at Denny’s, so I figured they weren’t toxic. Public bathrooms, porcelain roommate, prison food: all this was going to take some getting used to. I don’t know why people always made juvie sound so bad. If I’d opted for that state-funded place instead of this one, I’d be out by now.

I picked a table as far away from everyone else as possible. There were too many kids swarming the place to make sense of. I didn’t mind being alone; I kind of liked it. I was already prepared to be lonely. I hadn’t come to Berkeley to make friends. I laughed to myself. I was fucking funny this morning. But hell, I didn’t know why I’d come here at all. That was worth laughing at, wasn’t it? I couldn’t figure out what I’d expected, or why I thought it would be so great.

I wasn’t two bites into my cardboard-flavored waffle when a tray scraped on the table. It was a day full of wonders: some girl who thought she was hard core was sitting next to me. Uninvited, and most certainly unwelcome. If I was being nice, I’d say she was kind of pretty. If I was being honest, I’d say she was fat. And if I was being, well, me, I’d say I absolutely, one hundred percent, did not care, as long as she didn’t try to talk to me.

When I glanced up at her, mouth full of waffle, she blushed and pushed a greasy string of streaked black hair behind one ear. There were holes all through it, enough piercings to make me queasy. Grunge rich kids and their piercings. Did voluntarily subjecting yourself to painful mutilation make you as tough as the kid you were pretending to be? I didn’t think so.

She giggled. She probably took the horrified stare at what was left of her ear as a compliment. I resisted the urge to smack her, and was proud of myself. See? I was being friendly.

“I’m Leslie,” she introduced herself, taking a good thing and ruining it. At least she kept her chubby white hands, complete with chipped black nail polish, squirming in her lap. No handshakes. I was glad.

But not glad enough to spare her.

“And because you dye your hair and wear black, you think I want to be friends with you,” I said levelly, feeling her out around a mouthful of waffle. I stared hard into her startled eyes. Blue: just my luck.

“School just started, freak,” she muttered, jowls wobbling as she snatched her tray back. “Don’t you have _any_ interest in making friends?”

I swallowed and shook my head, smiling like I was being friendly. Which I had been, until she’d broken the fairly simple rules and opened her mouth. “None whatsoever. Feel free to get out of my face any time now.”

Leslie raised a professionally sculpted eyebrow. I wanted to ask why she hadn’t dyed those, too, in the dorm room sink. “I think you took the whole punk thing a little too far, asshole.”

She smirked. I guess it was a clever insult. I looked down at the wrinkled clothes I was still wearing from yesterday. Black, head to toe. Apparently that was the equivalent of a PA system calling all goth, grunge, and other confused genres of fashion to my doorstep.

I shrugged. Let her think she won. It was more important to her than me, anyway, and I just didn’t have a lot of jackass in me before breakfast. I was bored with her. The sooner she left, the better.

No sooner had Leslie’s wide frame disappeared from view than yet another would-be friend interrupted my unsavory meal. I was swiftly losing my appetite.

“You really have a way with people, huh?” a soft voice asked.

Did I need a KEEP OUT sign for my forehead? Christ!

“I can’t stand fake kids, rich kids, or dumb kids,” I spat, “so don’t bother wasting my time.” I turned around as I threw the insult, only to find myself face-to-face with a quivering Bambi. Fresh guilt washed over me, and I felt more like vomiting than eating.

In the last two weeks, I had either sold or moved two thousand, two hundred and seventy eight miles away from everything I loved. I had left behind my family, my best friend, and every thing and place that meant something to me. The weather here was taunting me, I hadn’t showered in two days, my waffle was disgusting, and I was surrounded by the kind of people who had made high school hell for me. I was an asshole, and I had no qualms about that.

Except with this kid. Was it the sincere eyes? Was it the face that I had to live with him? Or was it just something about him? He was just another rich kid—I didn’t want to have a conscience. But there he was, and instantly I felt terrible.

I’d already felt terrible. Add Bambi and it was like getting hit with a train.

“Oh. Adam. It’s you,” I said lamely, sounding less than thrilled and staring deep into the remains of my waffle. Maybe I really _was_ going to puke, and then we wouldn’t have to have this conversation.

I missed home. I didn’t belong here. I was stupid for ever thinking I would.

“Which am I?” Adam asked, staring hard at me. He almost looked angry, if his hands would just stop shaking. “Rich, stupid, or pretending?”

I flashed a weak smile. Because I couldn’t—wouldn’t—apologize, I tried laughing. “All three?”

A joke. I was trying to make a joke? He was so serious he was _shaking_. Smooth, Jade.

Somehow I’ve always had this knack for making bad situations worse. Adam glanced over his shoulder at someone, and then swallowed hard.

“Do you hate everyone, or just me?” he demanded, with renewed courage.

Okay, no joking. But I didn’t really want to open my heart and share a meaningful moment either, so I shrugged.

Adam’s lips twisted into a frown. “Fine,” he said, almost to himself.

This time, I felt bad before he even walked away.

“Wait—Adam,” I said, sounding pained and insincere. I don’t know what I planned to say, but I never got the chance. Adam didn’t wait. He walked away, and met up with a blond kid by the door. They left the cafeteria together. I didn’t want my waffle. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	5. Adam

Accelerated Español Cinco. Spanish was one of my best classes. It was a wonderful language: it flowed together, smooth and fluid, until it was more like a line of music or a rush of water than words. English was a torrential downpour, abrasive and fragmented, with only a word or two smattered in that wasn’t aesthetically offensive; Spanish was beautiful, and made every sentence sound like poetry. All through high school, it had captivated me. I was good at it. It came naturally, and I was a very attentive student. My pronunciation was flawless. I understood the grammar. I always made my homework very neat.

I had been excited for the first day of my advanced class. I’d be taking it with upperclassmen and the professor was actually from Spain. Especially after the confrontation with Jade at breakfast, the closest thing to a fight I’d ever been in—and I’d only managed it because Hunter was glaring at me the entire time, sending me telepathic threats—I had thought it would soothe me.

But Señorita Santella could not hold my attention. Every other student was taking notes and rolling words around in their mouths, participating or at least staring at the Señorita’s long, firm, golden legs. For some reason, I couldn’t concentrate.

I kept thinking about Jade. The more I thought about him, the more flustered I got. And the more flustered I got, the more difficult it was to pay attention. About the time the tips of my ears starting heating up, Srta. Santella had had enough.

“Señor Carson!” she lilted at me in her rich, rolling accent. She was asking for the answer to a question I had barely heard.

“Lo siento, Señorita,” I stammered. “Um, no sé.”

Srta. Santella scowled at me. Whatever the question had been, I knew it had been something very basic, something like, “What do you think of college so far?” or, “Where are you from?”. “I don’t know” was hardly the answer of a student qualified for the class. My blush renewed in vigor.

Speaking slowly and clearly, Srta. Santella repeated her very simple question. It translated plainly to “How do you like your roommate?”

I winced at the question. I was not going to like this class after all. Srta. Santella was out to get me. I was nervous, and the Spanish I had always been so good at deserted me. I gave her a fragment back. “Does not play very well” was the best I could manage. The Srta. nodded, accepting my poor answer. Hopefully, she’d brush it off as rustiness after the summer off.

I took a deep breath and tried anew to concentrate. But nothing worked. Sooner or later, class was going to end, and I was going to have to go back to my room and face Jade. I couldn’t think about anything else.

 

The room was empty. I have never been more glad for anything my entire life.

I pressed my back against the door and breathed deep. Carefully, I walked across the room and sat on the edge of my bed.

I stared at his.

I glanced at the door. He wasn’t there, so I crept over to his bed. I pulled back the duvet and was hit with a wave of cinnamon and smoke, what had to be his smell. Faintly, running beneath it all, I smelled the crisp laundry detergent the maid always used at home. My sheets.

Something in me relaxed, imagining Jade laying snug in my sheets. If he was just a kid curled up with a pillow at night, it couldn’t be that bad.

There were drool spots on the pillow, on my pillowcase that I’d given to him. I didn’t know why he’d kept the sheets after all, but I was glad he did. The corner of a notebook jutted out from under the pillow and time slowed down.

I heard my thoughts loud in my head. Don’t be stupid, Adam. Don’t you have homework to be doing? Forget it.

I pulled the notebook free, a tattered black spiral that smelled like stale cigarettes and ink. I flipped through it, warm, guilty pleasure spreading through my gut. I was trespassing. I liked it.

I thumbed through pages and pages of the handwriting I became acquainted with as Jade’s. If it wasn’t a journal, why would it be under his pillow? I was going to read the newest entry, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself.

Yes. Yes, there was. I knew what was right and what was wrong. Jade was never going to like me, if I even wanted him to like me, if he ever had the slightest _inkling_ I’d gone through his things. I closed the notebook firmly and shoved it back under the pillow.

I wandered over to my record player, where his record still sat. I closed the lid and let it play, secretly delighting in the music. It was somehow familiar, but altogether new; it sounded like something I was born knowing, but had forgotten on the way. I turned it up, so I could feel it in me; it was good. Smiling, smell of Jade stirred up in the air, and music throbbing, I felt strangely full.

My head was finally clear. I sat down at my desk , pulled out a clean sheet of paper, and started my homework.

 

When Jade cracked the door open and peeked inside, I did not feel the dread I was expecting. Instead my face broke into a wide, dopey smile. The music had relaxed me. I felt like myself. I could not ever remember being okay with that feeling before.

“About breakfast this morning,” was the first thing out of Jade’s mouth. I felt my spirits sink, and stopped the record. “I thought you were… well, anyone else. I wouldn’t have said that if I knew it was you.”

I kept my tone very civil. I had never really been angry at a person before, but I was angry with this strange, skulking creature who thought he could treat me badly just because I was his roommate. Something in me felt strong and alive, the way his music had sounded, and I let myself be annoyed with him. “You don’t have to apologize,” I told him coolly. “It’s not like we’re friends.”

Unfortunately, Jade did not seem stung by my bold words, and his lack of reaction deflated my anger. I was small and frightened again. I was much braver when I was trying to prove something to someone. Where was Hunter when I needed him? Probably in one of his nine million classes.

“I wasn’t apologizing,” Jade responded dispassionately. “But that’s great. I like to be left alone, anyway.”

He sounded totally convinced of what he said. My mood was killed. There was no way I’d be able to finish my homework now. There was an awkward pause and to fill it, I glanced down at my watch. “I have to get to class,” I said, relieved to have something to do.

“What time is it?” he asked me dully. There was something veiled in his eyes. I guessed it was a look I’d be getting used to. He had no interest in sharing any of himself with me, and I was almost convinced that that was just fine with me.

“Four fifteen.”

“Oh, wow. Me too.” Jade bit his lip and looked up at me from under his sloppy hair. “Um, what do you have?”

“English comp,” I told him, breezing airily out of the room.

He slipped out after me, sounding a little relieved when he said, “Oh. I’ve got Rhetoric.”

I was going to be sick. Jade didn’t realize it, but the classes we each had in the same time slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays were sort of, um, related.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	6. Jade

So apparently English comp and Rhetoric are the same fucking thing.

I figured out that pertinent fact about six seconds after I walked into the classroom and saw Bambi already perched in the front row.

There were about 2.5 billion empty desks in the tiered rows, so I picked a seat about as far away from Bambi I could get without leaving the known solar system. When he looked up at me, I glared back, just in case he was going to try to look sad. Random chance assigns you a stranger, and suddenly they think you owe them something, like you’re morally obligated to sit next to them so they aren’t totally alone during the first few days of school. Like you should naturally band together just because you’re lost in a sea of probably thousands of people you’ve never laid eyes on before.

Okay, so I felt a little guilty.

Not your problem, Puget, I reminded myself. Thanks to this kid’s… _presumption_ , you’ll need binoculars to see the blackboard. Yeah, some victim he is.

When class started, officially, there were only about twelve kids in the amphitheater classroom. Which meant that, slouched in one of the nosebleed rows, I looked like a total idiot.

Get used to it, Puget.

The professor stood up from her desk just as I began to blush furiously. She had a weird build; she went straight down, with only a little bit of shape at her hips, but maybe that was because of the suit she was wearing. It looked like it was cut for a man, an expensive shade of chocolate brown. Long dark hair fell around her skim-milk face in waves. Then she spoke, and I realized that not only did I _look_ like an idiot, but I actually was one.

“Welcome to Accelerated Language and Composition,” she said. “I’m Mr. Marchand. We have a small group this semester, which means that you are the best and the brightest of the incoming freshman class. It also means that you might as well come down, so I don’t have to shout at you.”

My cheeks flamed. He, my teacher, who had a male pronoun, a male build, and a male suit, was talking to me. There was no laughter in his voice. He sounded stern and serious.

Great.

Everyone, Bambi included, stared at me as I shambled down towards the front of the room. Knowing all those eyes were on me made me stumble. It was extremely dignified, as always. As I got closer, I realized that the professor was indeed a man, as his pronoun implied. It wasn’t exactly a secret, either. He looked like a man, once I got close enough to make out facial features. He was just awfully pretty. Laugh lines were etched around his eyes, but he wasn’t smiling now. He looked very solemn.

“Now that everyone’s seated within walking distance,” he said gravely, “we can begin class. We’re starting today with a question.”

He paused dramatically, studying each of us in turn. A handful of girls, identically blond in identically tight tank tops, sitting perfectly straight; some small, pimply boys; Bambi and me. His eyes seemed to linger over my bruise-thin skin longer than theirs. I knew why. I was translucent, blue veins and cords of lean muscle tinting me purple and red, with white stretched between. I was a California oddity. Even his milky skin had a healthy glow to it.

I got it: I didn’t act like the others, fidgety and pristine with color-coordinated school supplies. And I didn’t look like them either. Mr. Marchand was wondering what such an obvious outcast was doing there.

Was that his question? Because it sure as hell was mine.  
He realized he was staring at me and caught himself. He turned his gaze back to the vague midpoint of his students, unruffled, and asked, “Why are you here?”

A murmur rippled through us. Gen ed, credits, to learn. Substandard answers that made me sick. Rich idiots.  
The look on Marchand’s face concurred. “Do you really believe that that is the reason you are here? To satisfy a requirement, or to be taught how to write a better essay?”

They realized they were being scolded and the murmur died. Adam glanced over the head of the kid between us nervously.

Marchand fixed his eyes on mine. “What do you think?” he asked quietly. His soft voice filled the gaping room. It was quiet enough to hear every thought we had.

“If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t need to take the class,” I said dully. Every year, some jackass teacher who thought he was clever pulled this shit. Did they think it would make us excited to learn? I was smarter than this guy.

Marchand nodded curtly, lips twisting unpleasantly. “Very good.” He was disappointed that the misfit got the answer. He didn’t get to lord it over us now. Idiots that they were, the other kids nodded like I was very wise. “Can I get your name?” Marchand asked. He just could not leave well enough alone.

“Yeah,” I said, ill-tempered as always. “Should be on your roster.”

He wrestled a scowl off his face. “That’s very helpful. Thank you,” he said bitingly. I didn’t want him to like me just because I answered his stupid question. The only escape was to be a smartass.

Class passed in a bit of a blur. Marchand gave us a syllabus and assigned our first book, some great American classic I’d already read and hated. I don’t think I heard a word of it until he announced, “And that’s all our time for today.”

He sounded like a shrink. I would know. And finally I was free. I grabbed my grubby little notebook and headed towards the door. Adam lingered just inside the classroom, and I knew he was waiting for me. We were going to walk all the way back to the dorm together. It was a foul premonition.

Was it salvation, or damnation? It was hard to tell.

“Would you mind staying after class… Mr. Puget?”

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	7. Adam

Did he deliberately conspire to avoid speaking to me, or was Mr. Marchand going to stand up to the mighty Jade Puget? I hoped Jade wouldn’t beat him up. He seemed like a good teacher.

I was done with classes for the day, and the utter failure at roommate bonding left me gloomy at best. I dragged my feet back to the dorm, brooding. Jade saw through me. He saw what I had kept so carefully hidden all my life: I was not like everyone else. There was something fundamentally _wrong_ with Adam Carson, and for that even the scary punk DIY outcast kid rejected me.

I laid on my back. I hadn’t quite made it onto the bed. I stared at the ceiling and felt meaningless. I did not need the practice. I was old hat at feeling meaningless.

College, though. Ah, college. It had been heralded years ago as the Turning Point. When Adam shed his awkward, misfit skin and joined the world, smiling and charismatic and well-liked. Or at least less paranoid. I would happily settle for less paranoid.

San Francisco’s summer breeze, winding across campus, bit into me, gnawing on exposed flesh. The freak warmth of the last few days had ended, and goosebumps crawled across my sunburnt skin. The red splotches were beginning to peel, I noticed. A long summer of doing not much of anything besides a lot of reading and hitting a tennis ball against a brick wall had left me quite pink. I reached up and felt my nose, expending the last of my will to live. It was crooked as ever, and now it was peeling.

I pulled the comforter from my bed and let it fall over me, covering my face and chilled skin. I thought about crying, salt and disgrace awash on my face. Probably it would make me feel worse.

Before I could become even more pathetic, hopeless, miserable, Hunter intervened. He had been a good friend to make, I reflected. He didn’t care if I was defective or not. I can’t begin to tell you what a relief that was. My whole life, I’d suspected a defect, and everyone had been waiting for me to slip up and reveal it ever since.

Not Hunter. Heck, he’d probably like me better if I came out as a malfunction.

“How did you get in my room?” I demanded when he ripped the blankets from my head. I have never been much for hello.

Hunter cackled. He was not much for answering questions. “Your despair called out to me. You want to be cheered up, right? Because I am ass-deep in vodka right now, and I refuse to have gone through all this trouble so you can sulk under a blanket.”

I almost swallowed my tongue. There were no words with which to tell Hunter that I had gotten sick off half a glass of wine at my graduation dinner, the first and only time I’d ever had a drink in my life.

Besides, it was a gallant gesture.

I mean. What a guy.

My look of intense discomfort, wed with panic and nausea alike, looked to Hunter like surprise and acquiescence and apparently a question. I know because he tapped his shiny forehead and laughed. “How? I am the benefactor of a lucrative trade agreement, is how. I’d tell you the details, but in a few hours you aren’t going to remember them anyway.”

“Hunter, I don’t know if it’s the best idea,” I told him.

I had worried about this. My mom had given me a pamphlet about underage drinking. I had read it more than once. The pamphlet made it sound a lot like sex: just say no. Oh, and tell the police. Which I guess makes it rape.

“What if I told you that you could forget not only his sunny disposition, but even his name?” Hunter coaxed me. We both knew he was talking about the roommate formerly known as Godzilla.

“Are you completely oblivious to the fact that it is four in the afternoon on a school night?” I demanded, a little shrilly. The offer was very tempting.

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “I’m not stupid.”

I didn’t know what to say.

 

 

Very shortly I couldn’t say it anyway, even if I had thought of it. Interestingly enough, by the time my tongue had given up completely, knowing what to say was no longer an issue. I was happy to just talk and talk and talk, even if no one could understand me.

“Vodka does not taste very good,” I slurred to Hunter for the ninetieth time. He was busy with an air guitar solo. I spoke a little louder to be heard over the imaginary chords. “I’m actually an outcast,” I told him loudly, because Hunter was fluent in drunk and understood not only my words but my whole soul, and that was why I loved him, which I very passionately did, “cleverly disguised as a human being. I’ve spent my whole life worried that someone will find out, and now I’m just telling you. I can’t believe it. I mean, can you believe it? It’s un-be-lieve-able.”

Hunter finished his solo with flair and grabbed my hand. We were brothers. Our _souls_ were communicating. I had never been so happy in my life.

“Let me tell you something,” he said, and his sentence actually came out how he’d intended. I was duly impressed. “Feeling like that, that’s what being a human _is_. It’s all the rest of ‘em that are in disguise, pretending like they aren’t as lost and lonely as the rest of us.”

I felt unbelievably warm. I decided quietly to myself (which was not very quietly) that Hunter was probably actually the son of God, because who else would know things like that? Who else would tell them to me?

 

 

By the time I woke up, I knew that I was wrong. Hunter was not any part, parcel, or even vague resemblance to the Holy Trinity. His words were a lie. As the drink had stretched on, he’d been easy to believe. People came and drank and went, and sometimes stayed, and I was in love with all of them. I felt nothing but joy, because we were the same. Everyone smiled. I was in love.

In the morning, vodka was revealed as a lie. It had been my cure, and it had been beautiful. Now it was the renegade zombie offspring of the stomach flu, and it was absolutely ravaging me.

Resistance is futile. Your body is mine. Prepare to decimate.

“I’m dying,” I moaned to no one in particular. There was not a single part of my anatomy that wasn’t about to puke. There was not a pore on my body that didn’t have a migraine. There was not a single cell of me that did not want to die.

I cracked one eye open, and it turned out that some of me had been holding out, because surely whole new parts of me were on the brink of vomit, aneurysm, and suicide. Why else would I instantly feel _so much worse_?

The sunlight attacked me.

A shadow slid between me and the worst of the vitamin D. My gratitude at its mercy was also nauseous and suicidal. It said, “You’re dehydrated. Here.”

Before now, I hadn’t known shadows could speak, or hand me bottles of water. I didn’t know how to drink it without vomiting, so I just let it hang in my half-limp hand.

The voice rolled around in my head, unidentified. I decided it was a nice voice, deep with promise, with a hint of laughter. It sounded a little bored, which gave it a low, lilting quality that was magnificent to hear. Some small part of me found a will to persevere. My heart beat weakly, unhappy with the latest development.

“You’re not a big drinker, are you,” the voice didn’t quite ask. I squinted at the tall source of it, still standing guard between my eyes and the sun.

“Maybe I should be,” I whispered. The way my throat felt made the Sahara seem like a fucking lagoon. “For a little while, I was like everyone, and they were like me.”

Gorge rose suddenly in my throat and I tasted vodka on my tongue. The shadow sensed this and pressed a garbage can into my hands just in time for my stomach to pirouette violently out my mouth.

“Did I get puke on you?” I asked once I stopped dry-heaving enough to speak. There was vomit on my chin, in between my teeth. My tongue was totally permeated. It burned. A fat man tap-danced in cleats across my brain, and it hurt.

“A little,” said the voice, but it sounded more amused than disgusted. Its hands, which I could focus on without getting too dizzy, took the garbage can from mine and put the water back into my shaking grip.

My stomach lurched again, and the urge to vomit had nothing to do with alcohol. I recognized the hands, goddamn it. Long and smooth, cool and pale. Short fingernails, rough fingertips. They were not hands I had spent overlong studying, but they were hard to forget. I knew they way they held a pen. I’d seen it once.

I had not forgotten.

I could not forget.

“You can’t possibly have anything left to throw up,” the voice said, smooth and cool over my splitting nerves. There were tiny lumberjacks with tiny axes everywhere, and I had just been bought by a logging company.

Oh, god.

How had I not recognized the voice?

“I’m going to go rinse this out. You work on your water,” Jade, because who else would I puke on, said, taking the garbage can with him as he slipped out into the hall.

It would have been better if I’d died, I decided gravely.

It would have been better if I’d died.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	8. Jade

Bambi with a fucking hangover. Pathetic. Even Hitler would have felt at least a little bad for him.

Well, maybe not Hitler. But only because of the brown hair.

The state he was in when I woke up, he was ER material at best. By the time I got back from my first class, it turned out he was probably still alive, even if his liver _did_ say Smirnoff on it.

I was there when he woke up. Bad luck on my part, but there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, is there? I got him some water and watched him throw up.

It’s not like I’m completely heartless.

 

 

Marchand—who had asked me to call him David—had a way of haunting my thoughts. His eyes, calculating and cool, and his words.

“Do you think you’re better than everyone, or just me?” he’d asked. Just remembering it, heat crawled up my cheeks. “One of the prestigious 2% admitted from out of state, without a trust fund to your name. Do you think that entitles you to something?”

Yes. No. I didn’t know. Loathing for the man welled up in me. I hadn’t done anything to deserve being spoken to like that.

Did he think he was better than everyone, or just me?

“Awfully quiet, Mr. Puget,” he’d said.

“Quiet kid,” I’d said back.

“Tell you what. Since you seem to think you’re pretty clever, I’d better give you some extra work. You can write me three pages for Thursday. Tell me what’s so special about you.”

I tried not to grind my teeth at the memory. “You can’t make me do that!” I’d blurted out petulantly, knowing full well that he could make me do whatever he pleased. He was the professor. I was the underprivileged freshman whose tuition hung by a scholarship-gilded thread.

“No? Well, let’s wait and see what happens then. You refuse to write the composition, and I’ll wait for you to turn it in.” The bastard paused. “Of course, I’ve never been a very patient man.”

Then he’d smiled the most awful smile I’d ever seen.

I wasn’t afraid of him, though. I kept telling myself that, over and over.

He didn’t scare me.

 

 

I was in the library, where Adam wasn’t, working on my fucking three pages, when it started.

Just one whisper.

“Fag,” someone hissed behind me, hidden by a bookshelf.

All it took was that one whisper and fear shot down my spine. All the fine hairs on my arms and legs stood on end. I hadn’t forgotten what the word meant.

It meant blood, and screaming, and shapes of bodies circling in the dark. It meant baseball bats and black eyes. Sometimes, it even meant cracked ribs. Sometimes, it meant ER.

It was not a word that was supposed to follow me here.  
Fag, I pressed into the page, so I wouldn’t forget. That’s what they called me. That’s what I did wrong.

When the whisper came again, I leapt to my feet and spun around. The spines of a hundred unread authors stared blankly back at me.

“I’m sorry, did I do something to offend you?” I asked the empty air. It seemed to tighten, nervous, waiting for what came next.

Nothing did. Silence. I relaxed, started breathing again. Whoever it was, they were only whispering. For now, at least, it was only a word.

I shook my head and scolded myself. God, Puget, you’re a piece of work.

My heart was still racing a little when Adam’s blond friend rescued me. I never thought I would be glad to see anyone in the godforsaken state of sunny California, but right then, by myself in the library after dark was the last place I wanted to be. After all, I was going to have to leave sooner or later. And what if the whisperer was waiting for that?

Paranoid. That’s all, Jade. You’re just being paranoid.  
Right?

Anyway, when Blondie started walking towards my table, facing the bookcase the whisperer was hiding behind, I relaxed even more. He was a fucking godsend.

“You look a little freaked out,” he said appraisingly. I fixed a scowl on my face to hide the panic. A little freaked out? That was good news. I _felt_ like my eyeballs were about to explode.

“What the fuck happened to Adam?” I heard myself ask, sidestepping the subject at hand. I had probably imagined the whisper anyway, I told myself. “What did you _do_ to him?”

Aggression is always the best way to start conversations. It makes people take to you like fish to water.

Or is that oil?

Blondie raised his eyebrows. I didn’t blame him: why was I attached to the kid all of a sudden? And why was I attacking him because of it? “My, you do have a way with people,” he said dryly.

I winced, fumbling for humility. I owed him that much. “Sorry,” I mumbled, forcing an apology and looking down at my notebook. “I’m a little edgy today, I guess.”

What was this? Was I being friendly? God, one imagined—because it had to be imagined, I would rather assume schizophrenia than reality—whisper and everything I thought I knew about Jade Puget was stripped away.

Blondie, clearly picking up on the incorrect impression I was broadcasting, helped himself to a seat at my table. I reached for the indignant response I knew I should have, and instead found that I was glad.

Excuses: I was far from home, separated from everything I’d ever known, and newly bereft of everything I’d ever loved. I had no friends, and I was actually making that an active goal of mine. A psychotic professor had it in for me, my roommate escaped from a Disney movie to act as my conscience, and now I was being stalked by imaginary whispers. Fuck, but I was lonely. I was really fucking lonely, and I had never lived this way before. I had never _been_ this way before. If not for Bambi, I wouldn’t speak to anyone all day.

The fat girl had been right. I was taking the punk thing too far.

So there it is. I was in a world unlike one I had never known before, I was lonely, and now I was scared.

Blondie was welcome.

“I didn’t do anything to Adam,” Blondie informed me. “He did the hangover to himself.”

Hearing the name from someone else’s lips made my heart rate amp right back up again. Did that mean I was nervous about _Adam_? What inane subconscious reason could I possibly have for that? No, probably I was suffering post-imaginary-traumatic shock. Which, I swear, is a real condition. I would know; I had it.

I tried very hard to be nice to Blondie. I did not want to be left alone in the library, waiting for the whisperer—who didn’t even exist—to attack. I was skinny, even then. I have never been much of a fighter.

I set the goal of a semi-pleasant conversation that did not end with either of us storming out, nor with the uncomfortable obligations of friendship. It would take some skill to pull it off. But if anyone could do it, hopefully it was me.

“Well, he’s still passed out in bed, and he puked out most of his internal organs, and I don’t think a good like Boy Scout like him would get that trashed all by himself. I don’t think he even knew what vodka _was_ before last night.”

I hoped I sounded polite. Judging by the look on Blondie’s face, though, I was not the man for the job after all. As usual, I was being offensive.

Blondie’s dark eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair. “What do you care?” he asked evenly. He did not sound angry, or even mean. I think he meant it as a legitimate question.

I bit my lip. He was right, of course. I didn’t.

I really didn’t.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	9. Adam

It soon became clear that, despite my dearest wishes, survival was unavoidable.

I was, naturally, too mortified to ever see Jade again, let alone speak to him. That is not as hard as it sounds, even when you’re living with someone. I kept myself busy in the library, in classes, and at meetings for clubs I had no interest in, like racquetball and judo and the student outreach society. I even joined the math team.

Weeks passed that way. The sun slowly turned bleak, and sweaters turned to suitable attire as Berkeley’s excuse for winter began to set in. The palm trees even looked a little less lush, and the stinging wind that restlessly paced the beaches made them uninhabitable.

It didn’t take me long to memorize Jade’s schedule. I knew when our room was safe, and when to hang around Hunter’s. Luckily, Jade didn’t seem to spend any time in the library closest to our dorm, and I never saw him in the cafeteria. Just in case he was an athletic type, I avoided the gym; and in case he was a social butterfly with everyone except me, I stayed out of the student lounge and avoided any Greek association. I was probably being excessive, though.

If I stayed out late enough, he’d been asleep when I got in. I tried that for a few weeks, but loitering in the courtyard outside our building, counting windows (ours was up five, left seven) and waiting for his light to go off was not a particularly diverting pastime, and it left me exhausted in the morning.

The better system was going to bed extremely early, or at least pretending to. As long as I lay on my bed while I did my homework or read, I could pretend to be asleep whenever I heard a key in the door. Maybe the first few times it was sweet: look at little Adam, working so hard on his homework he fell asleep with his face in his bio textbook. But I’m pretty sure after a while Jade just assumed I was narcoleptic.

When Jade came in, he’d turn off the overhead light—narcoleptic Adam rarely did that before he fell asleep, or maybe he was secretly scared of the dark—and plug his headphones into my record player. He’d pick a record carefully, and if I breathed very quietly, sometimes I could hear the strains of it that escaped the headphones. He’d turn on the desk lamp he’d dragged over to his bed, pull out his notebook, and write. I watched his cramped writing unfold behind his milk-white hand through cracked eyelids. I memorized the freckles on his face and the shadows on the wall. His scratching ballpoint pen was my lullaby. I fell asleep this way.

In fact, my system was so impeccable that the only place I _couldn’t_ avoid my roommate was Mr. Marchand’s class. I don’t know if he ever tried to make eye contact. I became absorbed in Mr. Marchand’s every gesture. The man took it as a compliment, as if the poise of the way he held chalk was truly so exquisite, and favored me in grading, even though I almost never spoke in the class. Sharing opinions about literature was risky: what if what I thought was grotesquely wrong? It turned out that I usually thought more or less what everyone else did, but I felt more comfortable erring on the side of caution.

At first, I avoided Jade because I was embarrassed that I puked on him. Later, I was embarrassed because he hated me so much. After the first week or so, I developed a Jade-phobia; and by then it would have been way too awkward to speak to him anyway, after so long of avoiding him completely. If he had ever thought it was coincidence, by the third week it was clearly deliberate. After a month of watching his quiet, graceful hands scribble late into the night and learning the distance between his freckles, it just became easier not to interact with him. Hunter was my friend. No one hated me. I did not puke on anyone, and no one made me cry. Life was simple.

Until the day Mr. you-can-call-me-David Marchand handed out mimeographed copies of a piece of writing that would change everything.

He told us a student of his had written it a few years back, but I looked down at the page and knew it was a lie. I recognized the handwriting.

I recognized the hands.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	10. The Mimeograph

_Fag._

__

 

_That’s the reason, that’s the word._

_It looks harmless, sitting there on the page. You can’t see the fists and sticks and teeth when it’s laying flat on paper._

_Well, it’s lying to you._

_It’s hiding._

_So am I._

__

 

_Imagine the way his lips feel. Think about his cock, rubbing hard against your leg. The soft sloppy hairs of a half-grown mustache, scratching your belly, your neck. Teeth and worse nipping your lips._

_Want it._

_Want it throbbing, want it panting, want it driven mad by the thought._

_Every time his leg brushes yours. How can you think about math? Teacher, board, numbers. You’re sitting next to a god._

_Pervert._

_Fag._

__

 

_When I was still alive, when I thought I loved what and who we were, I lived in the only kind of neighborhood my parents can afford. The kind where a word like that is sometimes the difference between life and otherwise._

__

 

_The kiss was quick, and soft, and full of heavy breathing. There were no heartbeats. Time didn’t stop, only went on without me. His breath was milk. His hands were sweat. I was in love._

_The fault of the world is that it has eyes._

_It sees._

__

 

_Pervert._

_Sicko._

_Fag._

__

 

_It’s not like you ever got an erection during class. It’s not like you ever guided his hand into your lap so he could brush his fingers across it and love, love, love you for it. But if it was like that, well, you’d get slapped on the back by the biggest pricks and penises (there’s a difference), as long as he was she. As long as he was she._

_That is not what happens to you in the locker room._

_That is not what happened to me, either._

__

 

_Fag. They tried to paint over it, mom and dad, but whoever carved it, carved it deep. After that, the whole family was marked. I am a living hate crime. I was made to be destroyed._

_I am not built to take a beating, but that’s why I was intended._

_Eventually, you adjust. If you don’t break first.  
Even the front door knows, by now._

__

 

_Fag._

__

 

_It was beautiful, while it was. What you thought was love. His lips and yours, I mean: two sets of male lips, and male pricks. Four nipples, in total; twenty fingers, twenty toes. It seemed like we were unstoppable. There is nothing you can’t do with twenty fingers._

_Imagine the way you could play the piano. Imagine the music you could make!_

__

 

_There is nothing you can’t do when you’re in love._

_There is nothing you can love that you can’t lose._

_There’s nothing you can lose, but everything._

__

 

_I lost everything._

__

 

_After the door carving incident, well, we were as marked as Jews on Kristallnacht, my family and I. I have little brothers. Little fucking brothers, and they have to grow up like this. The neighbors, through the thin walls of the flaking plaster half-house you live in, they don’t know which son it is. All they know is one of them has cum on his lips, probably sticky still, and they have to hate the whole family for this._

_The poor fucking mother, you know? She tried so hard._

_Did she buy the wrong coloring books or something?_

_Is it her fault?_

__

 

_Something about that kind of life, well, it makes it a little harder to look people in the eye. To smile. To forgive them for being what you aren’t._

__

 

_When your little fucking brother gets jumped, you stay up half the night crying, just because it wasn’t you. And maybe the next time, you forget a little, that you deserve it. Maybe the next time, you forget a little, and also you remember, remember that you thought you loved him and that he never would have left, never would have moved away from you, if they’d just left him alone. If they’d just beaten you instead. And so you fight back with a fury, screaming with your fists and your heels and every swinging inch of you, beat me instead._

_And they do._

__

 

_What’s a cracked rib or two?_

__

 

_They beat you worse when you fight back._

_And it’s not like they leave your little brothers alone anyway._

_It’s not like he’s coming back._

__

 

_Maybe it’s the father’s fault after all._

__

 

_Why the fuck would I ever want to talk to anyone, after that? Why the hell would I want to be liked?_

__

 

_This is my branding iron secret._

_Put your cock in my mouth and I will like it._

_I am not a person. I am not feelings or talent or thought._

_I am only a fag._

__

 

_There are things that do happen to you in the locker room._

_Neither of us want to talk about those, though, do we._

__

 

_Do I think I’m better than you?_

_Don’t be stupid. It doesn’t look like you can help it, though. I am not better than you. Just smarter. It’s written all over your pale face._

_David? David? Should I really call you that, David?_

_You fucking asshole. You fucking_ prick _._

 

You have not lived through what I’ve lived through.

You would not have survived.  


  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	11. Adam

I felt like I was going to puke.

This time, at least, it wouldn’t be all over Jade; but thinking of him made it worse. Five seats to my left, he’d written this. And now, now I’d _read_ it.

I remembered the battered spiral notebook stuffed under his pillow. God! I hadn’t read it. I had _chosen_ not to read it, even while I was sharing a room with it, resisting the temptation to unleash the secrets of my mystery roommate. To be seen, it was Adam Carson’s first ever redeeming quality: I was not a snoop.

Until Mr. please-call-me-David Marchand had forced it on me. Now I might as well be James freaking Bond. I’d cracked the code to Jade. Now I knew everything.

Motherfuck.

I risked a covert glance around the room. We spies and other loathsome scumbags are very sneaky. Jade was staring down at his copy of the piece I never should have read, looking sick as I felt. Everyone else was still reading. Usually I would have felt triumphant, knowing that I had finished first. Looking around at my classmates struggling with the handwriting only filled me with dread, though. We had peer-edited in class before. They didn’t know it was his, not yet. But they would.

I did.

I stole a look at Mr. Marchand. David. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his smile hard and somehow smug. Anger seethed in me. How had he gotten this? Why had he betrayed Jade with it? Was he really such a vindictive little bitch?

And when did I start swearing?

I glanced again at Jade. Angry—I must be angry. His amber eyes were fixed on his own words, blurred by a sudden wetness. My own heart broke in my chest; Jade was the big, scary punk kid I had spent countless weeks hiding from. And now his eyes were wet?

Yes. I was definitely mad. I felt the anger, coursing strong and tangible through me, that I had never felt before. I had been irritated, but never mad. Not like this. Everyone who had ever hurt Jade—the people he’d written about in those hard, intimate words I never wanted to read, and now our smirking effeminate English teacher—put me in agony.

It screamed in my ears and I was blind with it; I wanted to lash out, to hurt them until they broke and bled and wept. Like they had done to him. In that moment I would have done anything, everything, to protect him, to erase the past and present hurts from his pretty, broken face. I had never felt so complete, furious and wrong as I was.

I was _not_ like anyone else, I _was_ different; and in that moment my ‘defect’ was that I could _not_ inflict hurt with the hollow disregard they could. I was gentle, and I saw it all around me; I was not ruthless or cruel, and that was why I would always be an outcast.

That was why I had to defend Jade, who never could be protected, who never wanted to be helped. Because everyone else just kept hurting him more, and maybe, I was the only one who wouldn’t.

When everyone had finished reading the words I was trying not to think too hard about, Mr. Marchand got to his feet. There was a bright, cruel light in his eyes.

“Can I get some first impressions about the piece?” he asked, all innocence, all good and thoughtful teacher introducing controversial literature, all prissy-emerald-green-tie bastard monster. His grin, one of the first smiles I’d seen on the solemn man, was carnivorous and deranged. He looked like the Joker. He was _enjoying_ this.

A boy with sandy blond hair raised his hand. His name was Toby. He wasn’t sure how to breach the subject matter, I could tell, but he had always been a suck-up. “Well, um, the writing isn’t great, is it?”

David—because that was the only curse word vile enough for him, his own bastard _name_ —steepled his fingers. I suddenly realized it was a habit I loathed. “What makes you say that?” he asked neutrally. He was careful not to indicate his own opinion. I wondered if he thought it was a good piece or not. It seemed crucially important.

The boy prattled on about fragments and tense agreement for a while. I disagreed. It was written wonderfully—why else would I be torn and black inside with anger? This was not the time to argue semantics. This was the time for blood.

 _David_ inclined his head toward a girl named Abby, and her words dropped like venom from perfect pink lips.  
“Personally? I’m disgusted.” Her taut little voice cut me to the bone. I did not look at Jade. I couldn’t bear to.

David’s eyebrows, probably waxed, curved upwards. “Oh?” he asked, looking surprised. As if he had not anticipated this response from the most forwardly born-again girl in our class, one of the last people on the West Coast with enough balls to denounce homosexuality. I couldn’t even _think_ of a punishment for her.

“Yes,” Abby said smartly, pulling down the sleeves of her light pink sweater. “Whoever wrote this is going to hell, and it was a vulgar thing to write.”

“ _You’re_ the disgusting one!” someone said loudly. His voice was strong and confident, made full with fury, and I didn’t realize it was my own until David’s all-encompassing gaze fell soundly on me.

“Excuse me?” Abby demanded shrilly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” I said quietly. My courage only wavered slightly. By some miracle, my voice did not.  
David put his hands up, trying to restore order, but Abby was already shrieking. High-pitched and angry. I had barely spoken six words in this class until now. Now? Well, Abby at least hated me, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one. I could feel Jade’s eyes boring into me. He probably wanted to know what the hell I was doing. What could I tell him? Who could possibly understand my need to stand up for him so fiercely?

Somehow, though, I didn’t care. Let her hate me. She was one of the people Jade deserved his vengeance from, even if he didn’t know it yet. Even if he never knew it. Hell, let them all hate me. Let Jade hate me if he needed to. But I couldn’t just _sit_ anymore. I was not that Adam Carson anymore.

“What, are _you_ the one who wrote it?” she hissed. She had gotten up, and now stood in front of my desk. I felt very small.

Those words, that question. God, but how could I answer? Lie, to protect the roommate who hated me? Lie, and let everyone think those things were about _me_? My whole life had been about blending in, fitting in, being _just like everyone else_. Who the hell was Adam Carson? I didn’t know. Nobody knew. But he’s just like you.

I didn’t even listen to the _music_ I liked for fear of being ostracized. There was no way I could tell everyone I was gay.

My courage failed. My anger turned into violent self-loathing. I wanted to lay open lines all down my skin, so that the pus in my veins would drip free, and everything would just stop. I was not Jade’s protector. I was not strong enough. I had been wrong. I was stupid to ever pretend otherwise.

My lips were dry to cracking, and I wanted to be dead. I spoke.

“Yes,” I said, voice all but a whisper.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	12. Jade

I was shaking too much to stand, but I stood anyway.

I had never been so devastatingly alone. Tears were wet in my eyes; I was frightened of blinking. I was stripped naked, all my secrets and fears and long-buried guilt out in the open in front of everyone, all these people I didn’t know and this one, this one I did, and I could not possibly go on.

That’s when the part in me that survives woke up. That part that survived, and still was surviving. The part that would never give up, even when I did.

The religious brunette bore down on Adam. His blue eyes were wide, curls pressed damp to his forehead with sweat. Heat crawled across his sunburnt face and just looking at him, shaking and sick, helped. It made it so I could at least speak. Someone had to. He couldn’t do it on his own.  
My voice was hoarse, but it would do.

Adam opened his mouth. My voice swallowed his whisper, jagged and gaping as a wound. All their hard, ugly eyes fell on me.

“I did,” I said as loudly as I could manage. “I wrote it.”  
I expected the worst. Right then, I assumed the worst was violence—for them to mob me, with Abby leading the charge, and beat me near to death.

I had forgotten where I was. Blithe and sunny California. Violence was not the worst thing that could happen to me. For being wrong about that, I was absolutely right about the rest.

Silence fell. Mary Magdalene turned on me, but her disgust turned quickly to a pale face and shaking hands. I scared her, I realized. It was one thing to call Adam disgusting, while he sat there shaking and tan as the rest of them. It was another thing to go after the pale kid with the dark hair. Did she think it was contagious? Or did dark colors frighten her so much?

No. It was me. Somehow, it was me.

A reedy kid with glasses (still tan and well-dressed, have no fear) broke the silence, then. He did it was something far worse than hitting me, far worse than Abby lunging at Adam.

He turned his red eyes on me, and they were filled with something soft and wet and weak. It was pity.

“I think,” he said bravely. He clearly thought he was sacrificing himself on my behalf. “I think that it was… a very _strong_ piece. The emotional content is raw, and it certainly… takes the reader into a new, somewhat uncomfortable, perspective.”

Suddenly there were other voices. Very interactive text, an involved read, looked at the world differently, made me appreciate what I take for granted, and worst of all, I can totally relate, because when my brother came out, he totally felt the same way. I was suddenly a book jacket, and they were eager to pin blurbs on me. Their voices droned on into a sympathetic blur. I didn’t know, or care, what any one of them thought of the writing; that wasn’t what they were talking about, either. They were trying to make me _feel better_. They felt _bad_ for me.

Poor little gay Jade. I was dizzy. I wanted to puke.

I was terribly lonely for violence. Why couldn’t they just hit me?

Pity. They _pitied_ me.

I used all my willpower not to vomit, crumpling the sloppy pages of my own bad writing on the desk in front of me.

This was worse.

This was worse than anything I’d ever imagined.

Somehow, class ended, and Abby especially was more than happy to run for the door. As I got to my feet, dazed and numb, Adam caught my eye. I held his blazing blue gaze and shivered; it had been weeks, now, since we’d spoken. Now the fire of his eyes was a lifeline, something for me to walk towards, a reason for my legs to work, for the bile to stay in my throat.

Sometimes at night, when the air grew too still, I was tempted to speak to him, to appeal to his dream-self. I wanted to ask if we could try again. I wanted to promise to be better this time. I had chased him away with pitchforks and brazen torches; maybe it was better not to be forgiven, and live under the pall of silence, so I never forgot what I had cost myself with arrogance.

Still, I found myself lingering in our room, almost never leaving, in the hopes he’d stumble in unawares. I was lonely, lonelier than I could bear; letters from Smith stretched too thin, and in desperation I sought out Blondie whenever possible, because I knew he at least would speak to me. I sat at my desk and did homework, waiting for Adam to return so I could say something, anything, to him. Somehow, I never saw him. It was like he knew my schedule by heart, and he went to bed so damn early. It was kind of cute, the way he was always collapsed with his books around him; but it made me worry.  
One time I had found him as early as five p.m. He was obviously working too hard.

I had never lived alone before. I was not some tough kid, strengthened by his bitterness, even if I had thought I was, at first. I was a homesick eighteen year old, and I wanted a friend. Not just any friend—I wanted Adam.

I headed straight for him, locked into the tractor beam of his eyes. He looked extremely uncomfortable, even for him. He stood amidst the flurry of the end of class. In spite of everything, the sight made me smile. He was good, really and truly _good_. A month ago I would have told you no one was like that. He had tried to defend me, instead of running in disgust. I am not overly given to warmth, but it took me then. I had never been so happy to see anyone. He stood, a point of solid stillness and dependability among the rush of kids around him. My eyes fixed on him, and I surged forward, understanding only that I needed to be near him, and soon, and that there were words for us to speak. I was too focused on Adam. I did not see the predator approach.

And then he lunged.

“Mr. Puget, I’d like you to stay after class,” David’s voice slipped across my invisible path, sultry and clinging as velvet, an obstruction I could not ignore. The whole of my body stiffened and my skin began to crawl.

“Wait for me,” I blurted to Adam desperately. He looked, to his credit, only minimally startled. He nodded dutifully, breaking his drowning gaze, and trailed out of the classroom, holding the pages of my sodden composition tight in his fist and looking lost.

David closed the door behind him. There was something malicious in his eyes, and sweat beaded all over my skin.

I stood, resolute and pale. There were a thousand accusations and angry words to fling at him. I should have screamed and torn things from his shelves, broken everything in sight and battered in his open face.

But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Something low and melodious in his voice immobilized me. I couldn’t speak, think, move. All I could feel were his eyes on me, and I was still.

He must have expected to have that effect on me; or why would he have me stay after shaming me so publicly, after betraying the little trust I had given and cutting me apart with my own words? I was _bigger_ than him, even if he was stronger. I could hurt him if I tried.  
How had he known I wouldn’t try?

“I didn’t know you and Adam were friends,” he mused lightly. “He is an excellent student. You’d think he’d… well, never mind Adam’s taste in companions.”

I stared blankly into his wide, chocolate eyes. Even they seemed to smirk. I wondered briefly what had happened to turn him into such a monster. I did not care for very long. “Why do you hate me?” I asked softly.

David took a step closer. His long black hair was tucked behind one delicate ear, and his burgundy business suit made his eyes glitter. He was shorter than me, and looked fragile; he slipped a tiny hand into mine. It was cold and dry, but I did not pull away. The skin was delicate and papery and revolting, like a bat’s wing. I felt it would crumble in a breeze, that if I squeezed it would splinter and break. I was shaking and terrified and filled with a peculiar loathing, and still his eyes were burning and his lips were soft and parted and I didn’t know if I was more afraid to pull away or step closer.

“Fag,” he whispered breathily, word catching seductively in his throat, and it was a whisper I knew, the one I’d imagined-or-not in the library. A shiver of fear captured my whole body, goosebumps exploding on my skin, and his grip on my hand tightened mercilessly. He pressed his petite frame against me, and my body responded in a thousand different ways, all of them awful. Horror and terror and pain and loathing and god, the worst of it, pure, untamed lust. I reviled the man, the traitor, but it had been so long since fingers had brushed my skin, more than a year since lips found mine, and his small frame was taut and stinging with electricity…

All the fear and hatred, it only made him more fatally attractive, made my blood course the faster for the death-thrill of him, and all that was twisted in me sang for his touch, and then—

And then he touched me, stroking a cool finger down my cheek, and I shuddered. Tears stung in my eyes and I did not want it, didn’t _want_ this; and David tipped his head back and pulled my face down to his and buried my lips under his. He kissed me, tongue tracing over my lips and then running hard into my mouth, and I returned the kiss I did not want while his twisted passion burned me. I returned the kiss with everything in me, shaking with unheard sobs even as my body responded without me.

David broke away, breathing hard. His eyes shined the brighter as he saw the fear in mine, the fear and the helpless need. “Fag,” he hissed again, digging fingernails into my throat and wrist and pressing his cock against me.  
It was hard in his burgundy slacks and he rubbed it into my thigh. Terror seized me, obliterating all else, and I whimpered. David’s tongue flicked at my ear. “Do you want to fuck me?” he whispered, sounding every bit the coquette he was playing.

His breath felt hot, and his fingernails slid, dragging dots of blood behind them. David moved his lips to my neck and connected the dots around my jugular; the torn and sensitive skin was a searing point of pain and I whimpered, unable to stop myself. I was frozen in fear, panic. I didn’t want this. I couldn’t move.

He asked again, louder, grabbing at my throat and wrist the harder.

“No,” I whispered hoarsely. “No!”

He ground his hips against me and dropped my wrist. His little palm flew and stung smartly across my cheek; the sound of the slap rung in the air. “ _Liar_ ,” he spat. His eyes were wild, and I was frightened to look.

I closed my eyes, feeling his hot breath on me, lips brushing so tenderly against mine, trying his hardest to be tantalizing. I was panting.

And then I heard it. A low, keening sound. Someone was crying, hard, and not far away.

Adam.

I remembered his bright blue eyes, his crooked nose and easy smile. His curls, tousled with sleep. I remembered the way my sheets had smelled the same as he did for so long, so that it was like waking up next to him, and I was devastated when the last of it was gone. I thought of him defending me, wondered why he’d done it. I thought of him sick in bed and vomiting. I thought of him helpless, needing me.

And I thought of him crying.

David took my bottom lip in his teeth and I used my hands. I used the bleeding one to tear at the arm still crushing my windpipe, and I used the other to shove him as hard as I could. His teeth tore free from my lip and I tasted blood. I pushed him again and he seemed to like it. He lunged for me and my open hand caught him in the jaw; he spun sideways, grabbing at the stinging flesh.

I ran. I didn’t look back at him, only bolted for the door; I burst into the hall, ignoring David’s shouts behind me.

But Adam wasn’t there.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	13. Adam

Stupid. Stupid fucking Adam Carson.

Tears fell heavy down my cheeks. Snot dripped from my nose.

What had I been thinking?

David and Jade. Of course. It made sense—both pale, brave, intense and cruel. Of course they were in love.

I didn’t understand why David showed everyone what Jade had written for him. I didn’t understand why Jade had asked me to wait for him. Worst of all, I didn’t understand why I was crying, running away. Why did it matter to me who Jade kissed?

Stupid, stupid defective Adam Carson.

When I finally made it out of the building, the sky had opened up. Icy rain hit my skin, mixing with my stupid fucking tears. I stopped running and felt the rain on my face.

As far as I could see, campus was deserted. I was the only one stupid enough to be out in the first winter rain.

Well, I was the only one stupid enough to do a lot of things.

I tangled my sweater up over my head. I wanted the rain to cut into me; I wanted to feel the cold in my bones.

I stared into the sky and screamed.

The echo was peculiar. It sounded almost like Jade calling my name.

I spun around to see him, absolutely adorable with rain on his face and grief in his eyes. Bastard. Fucking useless asshole.

Scratches were bleeding on his neck and arm. Blood mixed with rain on his chin and I hated him.

“Adam,” he said again, more quietly.

Speaking to me, quietly and reasonably! How _dare_ he be reasonable. I struck back with pure, irrational rage, anger even I could not explain. Just in case he might maybe still think I was at least a little bit sane.

“I hate you!” I screamed back.

Jade sucked on his bleeding lip and looked stunned, stunning. His eyes were deep with mahogany, instead of their usual amber. His dark hair was plastered to his head from the wet. His shirt clung to his all-wrong ribs and I was overly conscious of all my bare, freezing skin. The sweater hung soaked and useless in my hand. My skin crawled over me, alive with goosebumps. My teeth chattered.

“Okay,” Jade said quietly. “All right. I understand.”

What kind of answer was that? I _understand_? God, he was being difficult! All quiet and nice and sad—how _dare_ he be so _calm_! How could he understand?

I didn’t understand anything, didn’t know anything—I was lost, and he understood. How did he always know so much more than me? How was I so clueless?

The question itched on my tongue. Why. I just wanted to know the answer to it, to that one little thing in a whole world that I could never understand.

Why David. Why he could fall in love with our backstabbing English teacher but wouldn’t even be friends with me.

But when I asked, it came out all wrong. All… honest.

“Why him?” I demanded, still at the top of my lungs. “Why not me?”

“Adam, I—” Jade started. And then stopped. His eyes went wide. “You?” he whispered, an earth-shattering echo.

It was enough.

I don’t know where Jade went, but he didn’t follow me when I started running. I didn’t care about anything else.

I collapsed almost as soon as I got into the room, falling onto the first bed in my path.

It was his.

Sick and sobbing, I did what I could for revenge. I reached under the pillow and wrenched out his stupid wretched notebook, and I started to read.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	14. Pages 27-64: Excerpts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chorus of the song Everything, by Lifehouse. That's what came on while I wrote this (I totally have a slash playlist that I sometimes use) and I swear to god I almost cried.

_You’re sleeping again. I don’t know how you do it, but you’re always sleeping. You must be narcoleptic or something, I’ve never seen anyone sleep so much in my_ life _._

__

 

_When you sleep like this, I have to put headphones on, just so I don’t hear how quiet you are. So I can resist the need to press my ear to your bare chest and feel your moonlight skin, watching your throat jump in time with your metronome heartbeat._

__

 

_I need to know you’re still here, even though I sent you away._

__

 

_I’m lonely, you know. I’m incredibly lonely, and if I could say one thing to you, it would probably be some messy attempt at a broken apology, the kind that I don’t know how to fix but maybe you would._

__

 

_When you lay there sleeping, still and quiet, it’s easier to see how beautiful you are. How whole, and good, and not like me._

_You’re less like me than anyone I’ve ever met, I think, and no one is actually_ like _me._

_That makes you incredibly lucky, and it makes me incredibly sad._

__

 

_Things I would tell you if you’d listen:_

_1\. I’m falling in love again, just looking at you._  
2\. Your curls stick up from your head while you  
sleep.  
3\. Sometimes you sigh, and your eyelashes flutter.  
4\. Other times they are very still.  
5\. You make sure that all your laundry is right-side-in before you put it in the hamper.  
6\. You listen to my records when I’m not here.  
7\. I can tell by scent who else uses the same laundry detergent as you do.  
8\. I wish you’d make my sheets smell like you again.  
9\. I know these things.  
10\. I watch you while you’re sleeping.  
11\. I’m sorry. I just can’t help it. 

__

 

_You’re so still when you sleep, I worry my breathing will disturb you. Sometimes I whisper things to you._

_I tell you, I’m sorry._

_I tell you, I’m not who you think I am._

_I say, Neither are you._

__

 

_Where do you go when you aren’t here? I’m always here, waiting, but I never find you. I’d go out, looking, but what if I missed you?_

__

 

_Hunter tells me about you, sometimes. You’re the reason I even know his damn name. Does he know he looks like Billy Idol? If not, someone should probably tell him. If he does, he should probably be shot._

_I don’t want him to know that I care, but like me, he just stopped being able to ignore it._

__

 

_The way you look while you’re sleeping, I want to tell you everything._

__

 

_The sheets don’t smell like you anymore, and probably that’s a good thing. I don’t want to think about you._

_That’s important: I don’t want to feel like this._

_I don’t want you to remind me of him._

__

 

_I have this theory, and I hate it. It scares the shit out of me, and I don’t stop worrying about it unless you’re here, sleeping._

_I am fucking exhausted every morning, because I have to stay up waiting until your breathing settles heavy and low and I know you’re really truly deeply asleep. I have to be there, to listen to your breathing, to make sure you don’t need me, to make sure you don’t cry out in your sleep. I just can’t stop watching you._

_Anyway, the theory is that you are never in our room anymore because you spend all your time with some girl.  
That you found yourself a girlfriend, as kind and awkward and beautiful as you are. You stay away from me, because I said that’s what I wanted back when I thought I was telling the truth, and you spend every waking moment with her. Laughing and talking and holding her. Sharing secrets. Falling in love._

_God, that makes me sick. Just the thought. I hope that I’m wrong._

_I really, really hope that I’m wrong._

_For example, sometimes I pretend you’re a drug addict instead, because that would be so preferable to the girlfriend theory. Maybe I could find you ODing in our room sometime and rush you to the emergency room and save you. The ambulance is no white stallion, I know, and IVs and breathing tubes aren’t terribly romantic, but at least we’d spend some quality time together, you know?_

_Either way, I hope not._

_The girl thing though—I hope I’m wrong constantly. Not just in the maybe-he’s-a-heroin-addict way, either. I_ need _to be wrong. It’s not right that she can know you and I can’t._

_I’d be better for you anyway._

__

 

_What’s worse is that it’s my fault._

__

 

_The reason I’m writing to you is so you know. If you’re curious about me, if you care about me in any tiny part of you, if there’s any hope of you not reviling me as the scum of the earth (not to mention feeling the same way. Don’t worry, I know you don’t.), it’s here. It’s not like I’ve hidden this notebook very cleverly. It’s not like I don’t have constant ink stains on my hands. I know you know I write, and often._

_If you want to know me, Adam, like I want to know you, I figure you’ll_ have _to read this eventually._  
Or maybe you’re too honest for that—I hope not. I hope you’re enough of a sneaky bastard to invade my privacy. I want you to know.

 

Please talk to me.

I’m sorry I was cruel to you. I’d like to be your friend, if you’ll have me. No hard feelings if you won’t.

To tell the truth, I’d be everything, if you let me.

 

Good night, Adam.  


  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	15. Jade

It was late when I snuck into our room. I was torn to shreds. I didn’t even recognize myself.

Coming out to my English class. Liking every terrible thing David did to me. Adam, wet and shirtless. What he’d said, what he couldn’t mean. I had walked circles around campus for hours.

I was still just as lost, though.

I was not who I’d been when I’d left home. Somehow I’d turned into someone else, weak and alone and every bit the monster I was taught to me.

Fag. It was just a stupid word! It didn’t have to be me. I didn’t have to be this.

I could be different.

I tumbled into my bed, spent, and landed on something very warm, and very much alive.

Adam startled awake, swearing. That was not something I was used to him doing—not something he had done, back when he had so earnestly wanted to be around me.

It was too dark to see him blushing, but you could just tell.

“Fuck, Jesus, I’m sorry, I’ll—”

“No,” I whispered, not believing the words from my own bloody lips. “Stay.”

 

 

I woke up and Adam was still there, very tangible and warm next to me. I made a soft sound of surprise. I wasn’t dreaming.

We had slept that way, not touching but very much together, crammed into my narrow bed. His warmth had given me peace, and I had slept better than I could ever remember; but now it was morning, and he still hated me, and we would have to speak.

“Good morning,” I said quietly. Adam stirred, shifting. He made a small waking-up noise, a hum low in his throat.

And then consciousness came all at once, and he sat bolt upright. “Oh! God! Um.”

His rush of alertness left him faltering for awkward morning words. My heart swelled with fondness, and I repeated it to myself: you can be different.

I offered Adam a lopsided smile, trying very hard to look sincere. “How did you sleep?” I asked earnestly.

Adam winced. “Um. This is—this is too weird. I’m, um, I’m gonna go shower, and we can just not ever talk about this.”

Adam scrambled over me, nearly catapulting himself from the bed, face flaming.

“Okay,” I said, and then blurted out a question before I could stop myself. “Adam, can we try being friends again? I just want to apologize for everything, I’m not—”

“Not who I think you are, I know,” Adam said grimly, looking down.

My stomach lurched. When I’d written it, I’d never imagined—well. He’d read it. Of course he had. Had he read all of it, or just—?

I laughed weakly. It didn’t matter. He’d read the part that mattered to him, and he’d seen me with David. What else was there?

“No,” I said helpfully. “Probably you’re exactly right. I’m this huge, fucking gay bastard, and I treated you like shit when you were nice to me, and then David… and you saw everything you needed to. What you read… it doesn’t even matter anymore. You know what? Forget it, just forget all of it, forget me. You can go back to avoiding me, or I can find another place to stay, or—”

“It’s not a girl,” he said abruptly, voice sounding strange and forced. “Jade? There is no girl. There’s no one, and there never will be anyone, and there will especially be no one… no one _sick_ like you.”

I deserved that. I knew it. But it didn’t do a damn thing to stop the tears suddenly spilling down my face. It had been so, so long since I’d cried like this. Big, hiccuping sobs; I could barely keep them quiet. I couldn’t breathe, my face was a mess of red and wet, and I was all but hyperventilating.

Adam, though, was on a roll. He gave me nothing undeserved—no mercy, no relief, no kindness in his frozen winter eyes.

How can you fall in love with someone you don’t speak to? Someone you watch, wait up for at night, but have to pretend not to notice in class? All the while a softness grows in you, swelling every time you look at him, a tender spot deep in you that makes it hard to breathe—the need to care for, to protect. Over time you become convinced that you alone can make him happy. You are Pygmalion, and a perfect image forms in your head, and there’s nothing else to think of. You fall in love with it, and wait for it to come to life. It happens slow, and suddenly you realize you’ve loved him all along; and somehow you’ve forgotten that pictures only you can see don’t come to life, and that he does and thinks and feels things you never, ever dreamed of.

“I stood up for you, Jade! I told that bitch Abby she was wrong, and I said yes—I said _yes_ when she asked me if I wrote it! Thank god _you_ spoke up, or they’d all thing I was as fucking sick as—as you. For one crazy moment, I felt like I had a place, somewhere I belonged, and it was there, between you and Abby, taking care of you, keeping the people who hurt you away, even if it meant they’d hurt me instead; I thought that _you_ were the reason I’m not like anyone else, so I could be for you. And then—and then I waited for you, like you asked, so I could watch some twisted little sex scene unfold, and the man who went out of his way to hurt you is the one you begged for.”

Shaking, Adam paused for breath. My sobs were tearing my lungs apart, but I was silent. I had to hear him. I had to hear his every word, in case it was his last.

When he started again, I wished I wasn’t listening. “Abby was right! You _are_ disgusting. You’re fucked in the head, and I wish I’d never even met you!”

Adam was breathing hard now. He looked like he wanted to hit me. I wanted him to hit me, too. He was right. I _was_ sick.

I was stupid to ever think I could be different.

Adam was right.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	16. Adam

I don’t know where he went.

Days passed and he never came back to the room; his clothes, his notebook, even his homework remained untouched. I wished I’d been wrong, but I was right. I was entirely right about Jade Puget, and my faith in that did not waver for five days straight.

And then it was Tuesday, the moment of truth. I had no choice but to go to English comp. I wouldn’t let my grade slip because of some stupid roommate, and his stupid illicit affair with a teacher, and some stupid feelings battering around in my ribcage that made it hard to breathe.

I only looked once, but it was enough. Jade was there, slumped in his seat. He wasn’t dead, even though he looked it; that would have to be enough.

Mr. Marchand—because thinking words like ‘David’ and ‘love’ was a very bad idea for me right then—handed out copies of a Joan Didion essay for us to read. When he got to my desk, the whole world shifted. I don’t know how the desks hung on to the surface of the earth, why books didn’t fly across the room, how Mr. Marchand kept his footing—because the earth slid, and I nearly fell out of my seat. My knuckles were white from holding on, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The left side of his face was eaten up by a bruise.

“What happened?” I breathed.

“I was being careless,” he snapped, stalking away from me, apparently unrattled by the entire hemisphere doing the twist.

But I didn’t think so. No; I didn’t think that was it at all.

Hope glimmered in me, a tiny doubt. For the entire class period, for which his words might as well have been sawdust, it grew; and when Jade ran for the door even as Mr. Marchand announced class was over, the doubt swelled. I took off after Jade, wild laughter building in my chest.

As I ran, I repeated over and over, please let me be wrong.

Everyone in class was staring after me as I vaulted down the rows of desks in pursuit. I didn’t care, even as they filtered into the hall to gawk at my receding back. Why would I care? I was gaining.

“Jade!” I yelped, his name half-strangled by hysterical laughter. I caught up with him, skidded to a stop, and grabbed his arm to keep from falling over. Their eyes were still on us, but there was doubt. There was hope! What else could I possibly care about? What else _was_ there?

Jade looked at me with uncomprehending dead eyes. The zombie was back, the one who’d flipped me off so long ago. Some of the laugh escaped. The one I _loved_.

“Jade, his face!” I gasped, out of breath from laughing and running alike. I kept my hand clasped on his arm, just to be near to him. “What happened to David’s face?”

Jade answered slowly, sounding hollow, sounding dead. “I hit him, to get away. When he kissed me. I—I didn’t want him to—”

Jade’s dead mask broke and tears seeped out, voice cracking. “God, Adam, I _heard_ you, I heard you crying, and I—I just—I thought I _died_ , Adam, hearing that, and I had to get away! I had to… I had to find you…”

His voice went soft. He was crying, and I was laughing, and I threw my arms around his neck joyously. That was it. I was wrong. He hadn’t wanted to kiss David. He hadn’t wanted that at all. There was an enormous purple bruise to attest to that.

It was true. Everything that he’d written, that I’d read, and the sense of belonging I’d felt, the need to protect him and the smell of his—my—sheets. All of it was _real_. It was true.

And it was mine.

I did not have to be an outcast anymore.

“Adam, what—?” Jade asked, tears still wet on his face.

“Please, Jade, be my everything,” I said, breathless at the words, and I would have laughed again—would have laughed but Jade’s lips found mine and he kissed me, kissed me with everyone watching, with _David_ watching, and everything that I was and wasn’t didn’t matter anymore, because—

Because then, because always, then and now and forever, I was, I am, I will be, _his_.

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



	17. Note on the Kitchen Table

_Good morning, beautiful._

 

You’re still in bed. I know how lazy you get when you don’t have class in the morning.

Well, get out of bed! It’s a beautiful day, and you’re snoring through it.

 

Yes, you do too snore.

 

Anyway, it’s a very special day that you’re wasting. You didn’t forget, did you? I’ve only been reminding you constantly.

 

Do you like the flowers?

Smith told me to get them. He seems to think they’re your favorite. I think they smell funny.

 

I know, I know. We aren’t supposed to celebrate this anniversary, since we need the rent money desperately.

Also I know I said I wouldn’t apologize anymore for the way your dad reacted to all this, but I am sorry. You’re much too beautiful to worry about it, and especially on our two year anniversary—he’ll come around. No one with a heart could stay angry with you for too long.

 

Oh my god, I’m going to be late to Comp. Lit. if I keep writing. It’s just so hard to stop, once I’ve started. I can picture you sitting up in bed, grinning like an idiot at the flowers, curls standing up... Which reminds me, we need to cut your hair, it’s getting ridiculous.

 

Okay, okay, I’m going to class. I just wanted to let you know that I love you more with every moment, and if you forget to meet me for lunch, I’ll tie a sack over your head and drop you off the Golden Gate bridge.

 

Love you,  
always,  
forever,  
there is absolutely no way you can get rid of me,  
ever,  
and I am definitely going to be late to class,  
xoxo

Jade

  
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://www.afislash.com/viewstory.php?sid=7156>  



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